News: Supervised drug consumption sites considered for Canadian prisons (CBC News)

Canada’s prisoner service is considering opening overdose prevention sites as it expands a needle-exchange program that is now offered at a fifth institution for offenders who inject smuggled drugs.

“At the very least, let’s start opening up (the sites) so we can get away from the needle-in-the-cell thing,” he said, adding supervised drug use would involve health-care professionals at a particular area in a prison instead of guards having to deal with inmates injecting smuggled drugs in their cells.

The correctional service said its needle-exchange program is aimed at preventing the spread of blood-borne diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis C, as well as skin infections from shared equipment as part of other harm-reduction measures including access to peer-support workers and the opioid substitution medications methadone and Suboxone.

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